Month: October 2014

I pre-ordered the 100 Days of Real Food cookbook, immediately started reading it, and then took a good month or so before even trying a recipe.

Sigh.

Such is life.

Luckily, I picked a GREAT one to try first. I made a couple of subtle changes (shocker, right?) but I followed 98% of the recipe and couldn’t be happier.

Also, I just happen to be married to a genius. After dinner he says, “You know what would be good on these? Peanut butter.”

Damn straight it would was. I wrapped up the leftovers and popped one in the toaster this morning for breakfast. Instead of syrup, I melted a tablespoon of PBC Dark Chocolate Dreams. (Peanut Butter & Co. for those not (currently) addicted. The only reason a person should have for never having eaten this peanut butter is if they’re allergic to peanuts, and even then it mightstill be worth it)

Best. Breakfast. Ever.

Just a couple notes on our preparation:

Lisa uses King Arthur organic white whole-wheat flour in her recipe, but I used TJ’s Whole Wheat and it was just fine.

I used 1% milk instead of whole

Since we made waffles, we used non-stick spray instead of butter (every little calorie helps). I also used the whipped butter, which has less calories

I used bananas that I already had in the freezer. I peeled them while they were still frozen, put them in an open plastic bag and let them thaw in the fridge a couple of hours before dinner.

We used sugar free syrup instead of 100% pure maple syrup (both due to calorie content and cost – $8 for a little bottle of syrup? Ummm….nope).

Directions:

In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.

Make a well (hole) in the center of the flour mixture and pour in the honey, eggs, milk, and 2 tablespoons of melted butter. Whisk together thoroughly, but do not overmix.

Gently fold the mashed bananas into the batter with a spatula.

For pancakes, heat a griddle or sauté pan over medium-high heat. Swirl enough butter around the pan until it is well coated. Add pancake batter using a soup ladle.When the pancakes have begun brown on the bottom, flip them over to cook the other side.(OR be lazy and use a waffle maker like we did!)

We even bought something at the art fair this year. It’s completely useless to me but my husband makes all these amazing sounds come out of it. Now I spend the majority of my evenings drooling over his fine self playing his “Brickhouse” banjtar (it really does sound like a cross between a banjo and a guitar…but it’s made out of a cigar box!)

There’s just something about a man with immense musical talent…

That looks like that. Drool.

That picture really shows how much weight Cliff has lost. Which, by the way, in case you missed it the first 10 times I mentioned it…

He pretty much just rocks (did ya like what I did there?). Totally happy to have this guy in my corner.

So, the art fair was pretty terrific. We go every year with our friends, Jason and Dawn, but we had to miss last year so we were really looking forward to it. I was a little concerned that we would freeze to death (ok, ok – it was in the high 50’s, but I’m just not ready for it to be that cold yet).

There’s only one problem that I have with the art fair.

Here you can see every fair food imaginable.

And that’s just one of the dozens of booths set up.

This picture was taken from my attempt to hide from them in the foliage. And it worked! I didn’t eat anything from the fair. I didn’t even drink a lemonade (ok, that could have had something to do with the sub-zero temps). We brought water with us and I managed to stay away from everything, even after passing it…five effing times.

My own personal hell, I tell ya.

Other than Cliff’s Banjtar, we also picked up a few paintings of our (current) favorite cities – Seattle, Chicago, and St. Louis. I’ll post pics as soon as I figure out how I want to hang them up. Overall, the art fair was a huge success and I’m already counting down the days until next year!

The Hubster and I in front of the iconic St. James Court Fountain. After all the years of going to the art fair, this is the first time I’ve let someone take our picture here.

I’m not looking forward to this week’s weigh-in for about 20 different reasons. Let’s just say I might have over-corrected on the no restaurant challenge. I’ve reigned it in now, but last week was pretty rough.

However, I’m taking precautions to make sure I don’t have any more depressing weigh-ins!

Oh, the things you can do with a few Sharpies and recliner time. Take that, scale!

Another little project that is possibly in the works (depending on how much I’m able to put my Mom to work this weekend – I love you Mom, you’re the BEST!)

We have a pretty large space in the basement next to Cliff’s recording area that’s filled with junk (except the elliptical). My plan is to clean all of this out, lay out a big mat, install a few things (push-up bar, punching bag, etc.) and have our very own home gym. I’m seriously considering trying the Beach Body program, 21 Day Fix, on November 1st. It comes with a DVD containing a specific set of workouts to do during the program. Also, having a little gym setup at home would make my life A LOT easier when making my training programs each week. If something comes up throughout the day, I know I’m a lot more likely to go home and get in a workout than to stop at the gym these days.

I’ve gotten seriously spoiled going to the gym in the middle of the day.

Fingers crossed that I can make it happen. I’ll keep you posted.

So, that’s it in a nutshell. Now that I’ve had more practice with the Chromebook and the Google app platform, it’s going to be much easier to post more frequently.

Hopefully, that pleases two or three of you. 😉

I have lots of exciting stuff coming up this week, including:

Tasty Tuesday – Whole Wheat Banana Waffles (with candied walnuts!)

Weigh-in Wednesday – How to identify and deal with justified gains

Thursday – Susan G. Komen Race Recap

Today I leave you with my most recent musical find that has been on repeat for the past 48 hours.